Page 69 of A Courtesan Countess Worth the Scandal
“You should not have trusted me,” Edward said coolly, watching the listless young woman who swayed in the cottage doorway. “When your Father died, he left me nothing in the inheritance. Not a penny, though he knew my accounts were almost dry. Your Aunt and I received no financial gratitude whatsoever for taking care of you when your Mother would not, yet you inherited everything from him. And he did not even like you!”
That insult, above all others, ripped through Liam’s heart like a poisoned arrow. He had always known that he was little more than a pawn in his mother and father’s endless games of deceit and trickery, but there had still been a small part of him that had hoped his father felt some love for him.
Liam rallied himself and pointed a shaky finger at the pale woman. “Who is she?” He drew in a deep breath. “If you think you can use this impostor to ruin me and my happiness with Nora, you are sadly mistaken. Everyone knows Élodie is dead.”
The woman suddenly perked up, her eyelids flickering as though she recognized the name he had just spoken.
“You see, she knows who she is.” Edward smirked in satisfaction. “And I know who she is, and I have documentation in my possession that will prove to any authority that you asked me to steal her away after her fall from the staircase and place her here, in this cottage, so you could falsify her death.”
Liam stared at his uncle in abject horror and disgust. “I gave no instruction. True, I saw you carry her away, but you told me she was no longer breathing. The physician attested to it!”
“The physician was paid, by me, to say that,” Edward replied. “I knew your wife might become useful, in due course, and with her mind addled, it was not as though she could argue against my version of events. Nor will she, when I take this to the Magistrate and finally attain the inheritance that should have been mine to begin with. You will be hailed as the worst of men, and I daresay you will have to run away again in order to weather the storm of disgust that will come from it.”
Nora’s hands balled into fists. “You tricked your own Nephew into believing that his wife was dead and then locked her away in here? There really are no depths you won’t stoop to, Edward,” she spat. “I imagine you were the one to spread the rumor that Liam was responsible for her death, too, since that’s what you relish—toying with people like a puppet master.”
“If you think any sort of witness testimony will spare my Nephew, you could not be more wrong. As I say, I have all the documentation I require to bury my Nephew, carefully prepared by a masterful forger. And, as he already has a wife, your darling little hopes of marrying him have just gone up in a puff of smoke.” Edward cackled coldly, as Liam felt his entire world crumbling around him.
She was alive, all this time. She suffered further at my Uncle’s hands, while I was away on the Continent.
While he might not have had any love left for Élodie, Nora’s perspective on his former wife’s past torture had made room for some pity. And it wounded him gravely, to think that her torture had continued because of his uncle. A man he had loved and cherished and respected, who had only been using him to gain an inheritance. Even if the injury to Élodie’s head had rendered her insane, that did not mean she deserved to be treated like an animal in a cage.
Without warning, Élodie’s head twisted toward Edward, who was fully enjoying his guttural cackles of sick delight. Her eyes narrowed, and an expression drifted across her face that would have terrified even the hardiest of men. Indeed, she did not even look human, in that moment. Rather, she appeared to embody some otherworldly entity, who had a curse to lay upon the man who had imprisoned her.
“Bastard!” Élodie howled, her rasping voice as inhuman as her expression. “You… hurt me. You… make me… cold.” Unleashing a blood-curdling scream, she darted out of the cottage like a feral beast and launched herself at Edward.
Too absorbed in his denouement to notice, he had no time to defend himself as the wild creature barreled into him and knocked him to the ground. Though she appeared frail and thin, she had the strength of a woman possessed. Shrieking into the stifled night air, she straddled her victim and began to pummel him with all the fury that had gathered within her for five years.
“Unhand me!” Edward shouted, but Élodie would not listen. Instead, his voice only seemed to antagonize her further, eliciting a frenzied volley of scratches and punches to Edward’s face. He tried to put up his hands to protect himself, but there was nothing he could do against her determined attack.
“Help me!” Edward begged, his words gurgling as blood spilled from his mouth. “Liam… help me!”
But Liam did not move. He could not. An hour ago, he would have done anything to help his uncle, but now… all that affection he had once felt had vanished. Besides, if the situation were reversed, he knew his uncle would not lift a finger to aid him. And yet, he did find himself turning his gaze away as the scene up ahead became gruesome in its bloodiness.
As such, he did not see Élodie pick up the rock until it was too late. He only heard Edward’s strangled scream as the frenzied woman, who had been so tormented in that cottage, brought the heavy object down again and again on his uncle’s face.
And then, there was silence.
Unwilling to look upon what his former wife had done, Liam sought out Nora, his eyes watching her as she approached the insane woman. He began to take a step forward, to try and pull her away from potential danger, but Nora turned to him and shook her head.
“Élodie?” she murmured, crouching low beside the woman. “Élodie, I think we should take you away from here. Would you like that?”
The pale, thin woman dropped the bloodied rock to the ground and gave a small nod. “I… leave. Bad man is… gone.”
“He is, Sweet Girl,” Nora confirmed, once again putting the welfare of others before her own. She reached for Élodie’s hand and helped her to her feet. “Come on, let’s get you into the warmth, and change you out of these tattered garments.”
Liam, Carlton, and Denninson watched, dumbstruck, as Élodie leaned into Nora, and the two women walked away from the forest clearing, and the grisly body that lay dead in the center. And yet, Liam could not help but notice the echoed smile on both women’s faces as they disappeared into the shadow of the trees.
In a strange stroke of fate that no one could have foreseen, it seemed the ghost of Liam’s past had rid Nora of the ghost of hers. And though Liam did not know what would happen next, he was hopeful that they would find a way through this, no longer haunted by the demons that had scarred both their hearts.
Epilogue
Snow tumbled down outside the stained-glass windows of the church, while the congregation pulled their cloaks and fur stoles closer about their faces to fend off the biting chill that whistled into the sacred space. Liam, however, had never felt warmer, for he knew that he was about to bind himself to Nora in front of God and everyone present. And the fire within him was enough to thaw any cold.
“Who would have thought you would be the one to break our promise?” Carlton whispered, with a grin, as Liam awaited his bride anxiously.
Liam smiled. “I have already told you. No matter what forfeit you conjure for me, I will do it happily, for I am already the happiest man in England.”
“You should not give him ideas,” Denninson chimed in, clapping Liam on the back. “But I shall rein him in, for I am delighted to see you so content. After all you have endured, you deserve the love of a remarkable woman, and Miss Black has certainly proven herself worthy of that esteem.”
